Throughout this application, various publications are referenced by a number in brackets. Full citations for these publications may be found listed by number at the end of the specification immediately preceding the claims. The disclosures of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art as known to those skilled therein as of the date of the invention described and claimed herein.
Gemfibrozil (GFZ) is a compound that has been utilized as a drug for increasing intracellular accumulation of hydrophilic anionic agents (U.S. Pat. No. 5,422,372, issued Jun. 6, 1995) and as a lipid regulating composition (U.S. Pat. No. 4,859,703, issued Aug. 22, 1989). Gemfibrozil has been shown to be effective in increasing the amount of cholesterol excreted in to bile. (Ottmar Leiss et al., Metabolism, 34(1):74-82 (1985)). Gemfibrozil is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,674,836 and in The Merck Index, 11 ed., Merck & Co., Inc. Rahway, N.J. 1989; #4280. Gemfibrozil, a drug which therapeutically lowers triglycerides and raises HDL-cholesterol levels, previously has not been reported to have antimicrobial activity. (Brown, 1987; Oliver et al., 1978 and Palmer et al., 1978).